Wednesday Rebekah had a meeting downtown Raleigh so I dropped her off and decided to explore the new Wegmans. “It’s not a store,” people say, “it’s a destination.”

Well it’s certainly a destination if you want to buy some good food! I had a couple of hard-to-find items in mind so it worked out well. Very nice, very BIG, very HUGE, very state of the art.

My initial reaction walking in was as if I’d come into some food theme park. A tall guy in a chef’s hat had his arms out wide in greeting and I looked past him to see a veritable wonderland of fresh produce and so much more. Good grief, if there is any doubt that we are the land of plenty and privilege and the over-supplied then there it was staring me in the face.

It was like walking through Pikes Place Market in Seattle, plus that amazing outdoor veggie market we walked through in Prague, and the “sides of beef” Smithfield meat market in London, and the Chelsea Flower Show, and a huge craft beer shop, then a Total Wine store… and a whole lot more all under one roof.

So, yes, I was impressed. But I was also overwhelmed in terms of the immediate access we have to pretty much the entire world food supply, along with the in-our-grasp affordability.

I’ll probably go back, but only for the same reason I visit Whole Foods once in a while. If they have something I can’t get in my local grocery then I know where to find it.

In other news, I will be 100% grocery happy the day they bring a Trader Joe’s to Wake Forest. I don’t ask for much!

Peace – DEREK